On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden bashed Republicans at a fundraiser for Democrat Ed Markey, the candidate for Massachusetts Senator. After punching at Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), Biden turned to problems within the Democratic Party, explaining that it would be difficult to get blacks and Hispanics to vote without a black candidate on the ticket. “Barack Obama’s not at the head of the ticket,” said Biden. “And that means those legions of African-Americans and Latinos are not automatically going to come out …. No one has energized them like Barack Obama. But he’s not on the ticket. So don’t take this one for granted.”

He added, “Please, don’t be asking yourself two months from now, ‘God, why didn’t I do more?'”

Obama’s 2012 election victory was driven in part by heavy turnout from the minority community, which constituted a larger-than-average percentage of the vote in swing states like Ohio.

Of Cruz and Paul, Biden stated that Republican Senators didn’t want to go up against them, especially on gun control. “Almost to a person,” Biden related, “they said, ‘I don’t want to take on Ted Cruz. I don’t want to take on Rand Paul.”